Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle control apparatus and a vehicle provided with the vehicle control apparatus.
Description of the Related Art
Currently, pre-crash safety (referred to, hereinafter, as “PCS” (registered trademark)) is known that enables a vehicle to perform operations when an object (such as a preceding vehicle, an oncoming vehicle, or a guardrail) ahead of the vehicle is detected using a millimeter-wave radar or the like and the likelihood of a collision between the detected object and the vehicle is determined to be high. The operations that are performed are, for example, an operation to avoid collision (such as a warning or automatic braking) and an operation to reduce impact caused by a collision (such as automatic braking or automatic seatbelt retraction). PCS control requires a capability (referred to, hereinafter, as “ON capability”) for applying control with certainty on an object with which the likelihood of collision is high. At the same time, PCS control also requires a capability (referred to, hereinafter, as “OFF capability”) for suppressing unnecessary application of control on an object with which the likelihood of collision is low. In this way, two capabilities (ON capability and OFF capability) having a contradictory relationship are both required to be actualized at a high level in PCS control.
JP-A-2004-136788 describes that, to improve the capabilities of PCS control, the following is performed so that PCS control is less likely to be applied to an object positioned outside of a vehicle lane area in which the vehicle is traveling, compared to an object positioned within the vehicle lane area. That is, application conditions for PCS control are set differently depending on whether the position of the object is inside or outside the vehicle lane area. Alternatively, the application conditions for PCS control regarding an object positioned outside the vehicle lane area is determined based on the distance from a boundary line of the vehicle lane area to the object.
In general, even when the driver of a vehicle intends to perform straight-ahead cruising, the vehicle is rarely in a strict straight-ahead cruising state (a state in which the vehicle is traveling on a straight line). Most often, the vehicle is in a state in which the vehicle travels while slightly drifting to the left and right to an extent that the vehicle seems to be traveling straight ahead (apparent straight-ahead cruising state). The likelihood of a collision between each object ahead of the vehicle and the vehicle may be affected by the cruising trajectory that is the drifting of the vehicle. In the above-described conventional technology, such cruising trajectories of the vehicle are not taken into consideration. Therefore, even when the vehicle is in the apparent straight-ahead cruising state, the application conditions for PCS control remain unchanged. Therefore, the above-described conventional technology has room for improvement regarding improved capabilities of PCS control.
The above-described issue is not limited to PCS control. Rather, the issue is a common issue among vehicle control in which an object that meets predetermined conditions is detected from ahead of the vehicle and the vehicle is made to perform a predetermined operation related to the detected object. Such vehicle control includes, in addition to PCS, adaptive cruise control (referred to, hereinafter, as “ACC”), lane keep assist (referred to, hereinafter, as “LKA”), lane departure warning (referred to, hereinafter, as “LDW”), and the like.